Tag Archives: The Hero’s Progress

Last week I wrote a post about what I called The Hero’s Progress, and I took issue with a couple of the parts of the Hero’s tale – namely, that the Villain takes something precious from the Hero and just kind of locks it away to be saved later, and that, meeting the Hero, the Villain lets him or her walk away from the encounter.

Today I’d like to consider a problem with a different part of the Hero’s Progress – the thought that the Hero gets to progress through their journey through a series of increasingly difficult challenges. This is certainly how game design works – things get harder, you level up, things get harder, you learn some things and improve, so things get harder… But is this realistic or make sense?

So, I am going to consider this question for a moment, and then I am going to present a story idea for a game that would break that mold: The tale of the wizard Merlin.

The damsel in distress – part 2

Now I get to oversimplify some plots a little bit, and provide a broad stroke for you of what I am calling The Hero’s Progress. I am naming this after the famous Eighteenth Century works, The Pilgrim’s Progress, the Harlot’s Progress, and the Rake’s Progress. I lack the artistic skills to make images for you to match them, however. Maybe one of you can do so.

Something precious is taken (our Damsel, perhaps)

Show up to save it, and find out you are outclassed by the Villain or situation

Find a teacher or Master to train and lead you

Journey around and train up against increasingly difficult situations

The Master is lost or dies

The Hero surpasses the master, kicks butt, and saves the day

So that’s my take on parts that we seem to see a lot in the Hero’s progression, in leveling up, in game story telling, in super hero stories, in a lot of things. It’s certainly the sort of overall story we see with a Damsel in Distress.

Holly argued yesterday about how the Damsel in Distress is problematic because it seems to always be a weak woman and strong man having to save her. From a feminist standpoint, this is absolutely the case. You have a female character who, in the story outline I have here in the Hero’s Progress, shows up basically towards the beginning and then right towards the end.

I am going to take a storytelling approach to the problems here, however. In terms of motivation, we have several problematic aspects to this Hero’s Progress, and ways that they do not match reality – meaning that this story progression ends up making us feel like this is how things should be, without them actually being this way. Like Holly said, if a woman sits around waiting to be rescued, or a man feels he is worthless if he is not the one making more money, we have a problem. And it doesn’t match the reality in front of you then.

So, I am going to mainly deal with the first two aspects of the Hero’s Progress, because that is where there is overlap the most with Holly’s argument – and, as you see from my points, it makes the later stuff kind of moot. Continue reading →